Dialogue

Hamer Center Coffee Hour: Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform

Hosted by the Hamer Center for Community Design, in collaboration with the Arts & Design Research Incubator. The theme for spring 2021 Hamer Center Coffee Hour talks is global commUNities - Humanitarian design in an age of global crises.

Speakers
DK Osseo-Asare, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Engineering Design
Yasmine Abbas, Assistant Teaching Professor, Stuckeman School of Architecture

Zoom link: https://psu.zoom.us/j/99943665818?pwd=bTQvb3RBZG1JTnFEUUovSzNieGhVQT09
Password: 8675309

Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) is a participatory project to retrofit the future of the Agbogbloshie scrapyard in Accra, Ghana—today portrayed in global media as “the world’s largest e-waste dump”, typifying technology’s toxic fallout: The problem of planned obsolescence in a time of consumer culture. Integrating the practical know-how of grassroots makers with the technical knowledge of students and young professionals in STEAM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), AMP operates as an experimental STEAM-powered innovation engine to induce urban collaboration. Through hands-on maker workshops that leverage the scrapyard as the repository of both collective knowledge and materials, AMP brings together youth from different cultural backgrounds to co-create an open architecture for “crafting space”. Read more about this project at https://www.visibleproject.org/blog/project/agbogbloshie-makerspace-platform/\

Yasmine Abbas is a French architect (DPLG 1997) and strategic designer. Her research explores mobility, digital culture, and augmented place-making, with her current focus being on fabricating atmospheres, generative mapping, cartography, and the computational design of ambiance.

DK Osseo-Asare is cofounder and principal of architecture and integrated design studio Low Design Office (LOWDO), based in Austin, Texas and Tema, Ghana. He currently holds a triple appointment in humanitarian materials Penn State as an assistant professor of architecture and engineering design, triangulating the Stuckeman School, the School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs (SEDTAPP), and the Materials Research Institute (MRI). He is the director of the Humanitarian Materials Lab (HuMatLab), affiliate to the Materials Matters and Stuckeman Center for Design Computation research clusters, and associate director of AESEDA, Penn State’s Alliance for Education, Science, Engineering and Design with Africa.